Shadic95 wrote on 2026-09-23, 13:35:

And... I am going to give NVIDIA one more chance, and, go for a GeForce 2 GTS. It supports DirectX 7.0 or so, which is the best Windows 98SE can do without stuff breaking, so in my eyes, this is probably the limit/best I can do for this machine, which isn't a Voodoo 4 or 5, which I just cannot even dream of affording.

This is not true, Windows 98 SE works fine with DirextX 8.1 and probably even 9. There's something else wrong than the DirectX version.

Mike_ wrote on 2026-09-23, 14:19:

This is not true, Windows 98 SE works fine with DirextX 8.1 and probably even 9. There's something else wrong than the DirectX version.

Strange... I coulda swore I had read on the forums in quite a few places that versions beyond 7.0A or so caused issues with things. I do know the lighting model from DirectX 5 to 6 changed (which most noticeably affects LEGO Island, whose famous plastic shine on the characters becomes a more matte texture, with DirectX 6 onwards), but I haven't learned for sure why many people seem to recommend sticking strictly to 7.0A as the latest DirectX version.

9 times out of 10 stability issues in Win9x and 2k are either memory or driver related.

Definitely run memtest86+ overnight to check the memory. If bad, replace. Or just remove the offending DIMM - 512MB is not needed with a P3 (anything that needs that much RAM will crawl anyway).

Then look at drivers. Be sure to do them in correct order:
- before anything else chipset drivers (storage & AGP)
- then VGA
- then montor "driver" (=just a list of modelines) if EDID doesn't tell the card what works straight away
- then rest

Do it step by step, check stability at every point so you know where problems are coming from if things go wrong.

I see a very late Forceware version (56.46), which will at the very least add a lot of unnecessary overhead in Win98. Try Detonator 45.23 instead for FX5200. Should be a lot faster, possibly less buggy too. Not sure what would be best with the Gf2GTS, possibly an older one would be faster.
Drivers for fancy mouse & keyboard features are not things for first install. Only do later if everything is running stable. No need to ditch the hardware, just not bother the OS with their non-default stuff.
Instead of using possibly never updated card vendor drivers (eg. Startech), go for chipset vendor drivers instead. Realtek still has their latest Win98 drivers on their site.

Once you have good RAM and drivers, keep it as simple as possible. I see a pile of software you're installing that would have been logical on a general-purpose system back in the day, but do you really want to be installing office applications on a P3 in 2026? Similarly there's a lot of multimedia stuff there that go pretty deep into the OS. If you really want them, again go slow and check stability at every step.

With dion_bˆˆ

Step by step and keep it simple! If you encounter problems you'll know what caused the problems.

Your list of 'notable software' includes a lot of stuff I would never install on a retro build. On my latest Win98SE build (aimed for Voodoo Graphics and PowerVR) I have 7-zip (instead of WinRAR) and Daemon Tools installed as "notable software" from your list. The rule of thumb is that the more you install, the more problems you're going to face. Keep Win98SE tidy and it will serve you well with more than enough stability to play games. I rarely (dare I say: never?!) encounter blue-screens and if I do it's either bad hardware or I have been screwing around with testing drivers and such.

Shadic95 wrote on 2026-09-23, 14:27:

Strange... I coulda swore I had read on the forums in quite a few places that versions beyond 7.0A or so caused issues with things. I do know the lighting model from DirectX 5 to 6 changed (which most noticeably affects LEGO Island, whose famous plastic shine on the characters becomes a more matte texture, with DirectX 6 onwards), but I haven't learned for sure why many people seem to recommend sticking strictly to 7.0A as the latest DirectX version.

Sure, it's possible that people recommend sticking to DirectX 7.0A but people say a lot of things. 😀 I don't remember hearing about that, and my 98 SE build seems to work fine with DirectX 8.1 installed. Also, 3DMark 2001 SE is a popular benchmark for 98 builds, and it does require DirectX 8.1.

Thanks all for the advice, so far!

In regards to the mouse and keyboard software, for now, I am switching to a basic PS/2 Mouse and Keyboard for now, just to keep possible issues down. I'll look into my preferred USB options again, once I can confirm the rest is working right.

In regards to the general sort of software selection, yeah, I should cut back on those, except for a few things. I just tend to have the mindset of setting computers up of any age, with the "essentials", but... that really isn't needed for a computer of this caliber, especially these days.

At this time, I am letting Memtest86+ run on the machine with the RAM already in there (the two 128MB IBM PC133 sticks. the other RAM has been ordered, but is not going to be here for who knows how long), and by night or so, if I am seeing no failures, then I'll consider that good enough to get back to the grind of getting a working Windows 98SE install. One for the machine with the GeForce FX, and another for the system with the GeForce 2 GTS (my preferred GPU for the system, once it comes in the mail)

On that note of the FX, I'll give that Detonator driver version a shot as well, and see how that works. Hopefully better than what I was using before. Thanks again for all the help! (I wonder if this driver would also be good for the GeForce 2 GTS? Or if an older one would be better. Hm...)

Shadic95 wrote on 2026-09-23, 16:09:

In regards to the mouse and keyboard software, for now, I am switching to a basic PS/2 Mouse and Keyboard for now, just to keep possible issues down. I'll look into my preferred USB options again, once I can confirm the rest is working right.

Is this the motherboard you are using? It does appear to have USB connectors on itself, so you won't need an add-on card for USB mouse or keyboard. If BIOS has "USB legacy compatibility" option for mouse and keyboard, they would probably even work in DOS.

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/intel-d815eea-easton

Alright, been a few days. Been off an on working on the machine (by the way, yes, that is my board, Mike_), and here's where I'm at so far.

At the moment, the RAM and GPU I want for the system are not here, so this is almost the same hardware list from before. Though I did have to remove one thing, which was the Gigabit Ethernet card, whose drivers made it say on the Windows 98 splash screen forever, moving the bar, but never actually fully booting. A little sad to remove it, but Gigabit speeds are admittedly too much for Windows 9x anyways. I don't think I'll need that speed for Windows 2000 either, when I get to that.

Anyways, I ran Memtest86+ for about 4 hours 2-3 days ago (the PC sounds like a jet turbine at the moment, so letting it run all night... wasn't going to happen), and it didn't show any errors, so the current 256MB sticks in there seem to be okay, best I can tell. I have kept things light, as advised by dionb, and Thandor, and, it seems it is a success! My main benchmarks of ensuring everything is working right are HxD (for some reason would blue screen my system in the past), LEGO Rock Raiders (would trigger errors with Ddhelp and I think Rundll32 after quitting the game), and the 3D Maze Screensaver (to my memory was having a similar issue to Rock Raiders, when you would exit out of the screensaver). I ran these tests after anytime I installed a new driver or piece of software, and thankfully, with the state it's in now, it appears to be fully working!

Some notes, though. dionb, that Detonator driver seems like it was a great call. Aside from 2 different times where I restarted my PC too quickly (or so I assume triggered it) causing the Rundll32 and Ddhelp errors, I haven't been having any issues with the driver, or the GPU, and it seems this may be the correct driver for the FX 5200, and not the other one that I had read was the best for that card. Also, since the mouse and keyboard seem to fully function without their software (Intellipoint and iTouch), I have avoided installing those, just to be on the safe side. Also for now, I am keeping the system at DirectX 7.0a, only because I have heard conflicting reports on if the newer DirectX versions cause issues or not. If I ever do want to try a newer version, I have been making backups of the CF Card through the different stages of the install, so I can always revert back, if need be.

On that note, even though keeping bloat down is advised, I do want to experiment with installing the other software I usually do, to "complete" my 9x installs. Those being:

9r289 (Flash)
Internet Explorer 6 SP1
ms_visual_cpp_60_nov2000_runtimes
ms_visual_cpp_2005_runtimes
net-framework20 (should I install .NET 1 and it's service packs first?)
Windows Media Player 9 (and a few security updates that came with it)
acrobat601
Goldwave 4.26
java50
Plus! 98
quicktime652
realplayer-10-5-6-0-12-1698-RealPlayer10-5GOLD
retrozilla-2.3-win32-installer
After Dark 10th Anniversary
After Dark Games

(The After Dark stuff comes with screen savers and such. I don't know if they will mess with my system much, hence why I have included them in this list of extra software that I would like to try and install, but will do so with caution, and doing the same benchmarks I was before)

I *might* also experiment with Legacy Update, if somehow all of these softwares go without hitch. But for Office? I am not bothering with that, until way later, if at all. That crap is such a headache, especially with all of the security updates that are advised, so uh, not bothering with that for a while, if ever.

Until I get the GeForce 2 GTS and the 3 RAM sticks (equating to 512MB) in the mail, I will not post anything else, unless someone wants to chip in and give some advice, or something like that. Any updates regarding the extra software will be edited onto this post, since it's not especially productive to be making constant posts about the quirks of each software.

EDIT 1: So by some miracle, the machine passes all of my tests with all of the stuff I wanted installed (Minus Office for now), which was a huge surprise to me. The only thing that was sus to me was that my machine Blue Screened after installing the version of Real Player I have (wish I took a picture of it), but after I pressed a key to continue, the machine went on, as if nothing happened, so it might have just been a weird blip. Opening it and Quicktime later didn't cause issues, and HxD, 3D Maze, and Rock Raiders, all still work, without crashing, and for now, consistently. This is great, but just incase, I have made 4 different CF Card images, through this journey, incase I want to revert to a state with less software, and other such things. For now, I guess I'll work on the Windows 2000 install, and, do it all over again sorta, once the GeForce 2 GTS comes in. It really seems like this system's main issue was GPU Drivers, and possibly whatever RAM I may have been using before. So, as long as it's not too hard or annoying to locate the "best" GeForce 2 GTS drivers, I think those installs should be smooth sailing. Or, so I hope.

Maybe people will disagree with me, but the DirectX version I install is always the one that the installed graphics card was designed for. The FX 5200 is a DirectX 9 card, and therefore it's drivers would have had most of their testing done under that DirectX version. IMHO, it is asking for trouble to use it with an older DirectX version than they tested it with.

For DirectX 7 I would use a Geforce 2, as you are intending to do.

There are some odd cards like Geforce 4 MX though that are actually built for an older DirectX version than their name would suggest. The GF4 MX released at the time of DirectX 8.1 but, actual the hardware can only do DirectX 7. So in that case, it is a bit harder to know what DirectX version to install. It was probably tested mostly under 8.1, but the hardware only uses the 7.0 features.

The other thing to be careful of is installing games from a newer period than the machine is designed for. Many will update your DirectX version without even asking.

I don't believe there is anything bad about DirectX 8.x or 9 on Windows 98 though. As long as the hardware was designed for it. My overkill Windows 98 machine has been running for years with DirectX 9 and the Geforce FX 5900 Ultra on a Core 2 Duo X6800.